Swedish Christmas pairings

First off, Happy Holidays! In a year full of isolation this board has been a great escape and people’s generosity with their knowledge and their wine has been overwhelming, so cheers to you all!

My girlfriend is preparing her first Swedish Christmas dinner as we cant visit with her family this year and I’ll
be contributing the only way I know how, supplying wine. I was hoping someone may have some experience with pairing these dishes as some have quite strong flavors.

To start will be pickled herring, I was thinking a Ferrari Brut, mostly because I have a case and when in doubt I start with sparkling.

The main courses will be a mock lukfish smoked cod casserole (cod, potatoes and jarlsberg cheese), I’m pretty lost on this one honestly.

Janssons Frestelse (basically scalloped potatoes swedish anchovies) again the anchovies throw me for a loop.

And of course Swedish meatballs with Lingonberry sauce, based on the sauce I was thinking Oregon Pinot perhaps, but we dont get a ton of options here in Canada so possibly NZ.

I’m also going to try my hand at a traditional julglögg if anyone has any pointers.

Once again Happy Holidays,
Cheers!

I married into a Skandi family too, and I find it disturbing you’re doing anything with lutefisk.

Normally we have lots of homemade aquavits (carraway, ginger, cardamon etc.) or if not there are some commercial offerings we find at local Corti Bros. Those are the stalwarts to get the herring(s) down.

Sadly, this year there will be no smorgasbord, so I’ll just look at some pix of old ones.

Haha we’re not using true lutefisk, just smoked cod. Thanks for the herring suggestion and the beautiful smorgasbord pics, I’m sorry you wont be able to celebrate the same this year!

Glogg all the way!

Sounds like my youth! The only thing missing is Swedish sausage!

There used to be a specialty German/Baltic butcher out in a far suburb here where I would be dispatched to find prinzkorv, potato sausage and all that carnivorous obscura each Fall, but sadly when I went last year it had closed down.

Hot glugg, cold beer and bubbly are probably the easiest things to proffer for a smorgy. I guess it also stops me from drifting in wine bore / lecturer mode. Family members have confessed that they don’t actually care about the grape blends, elevage, harvest conditions of everything they consume!

Lol smoked cod has nothing to do with lutefisk. It’s like saying replacing a bread with a McDonalds (or whatever burger joint) meal. Lutefisk is supposed to be flavorless semi-liquid flubber.

As a Nordic person I must say “lol no”.

And normally an off-dry Riesling / white works better than anything bone-dry with pickled herrings. The damn buggers can make a dry wine feel lean and metallic. Just a word of warning if you’re planning to go with Ferrari.

Making glögg is ridiculously easy. Just pour half a bottle of inexpensive wine into a kettle, add 70-80 g of white sugar and christmas spices (cloves are virtually mandatory; star anise, cinnamon, bitter orange zest, cardamom and chopped ginger are reliable as well). Let it rest for 15 min or so over medium heat, then pour through a sieve back into the bottle. Let it cool down and then marry those flavors in a fridge for a few hours. Serve warm.

Thanks for all the input Otto! Yes I understand the cod casserole will be nothing like the real thing, but I’ve never had the real thing and from some reports I may never want to haha. I will definitely implement your suggestion of off dry riesling, makes perfect sense.

Yuk
Need a poll for this to see if people really like it or are just polite about it. I usually take a couple of pursed sips and then look for the 1st opportunity to dump it down the drain

In all likelihood this is the case. I actually do enjoy the stuff, but I think my family is pretty much alone with this tradition. From what I’ve understood, all my friends consider the stuff pretty repulsive (which I find odd, since it’s just flavorless goo).

It’s not unlike eating unflavored silken tofu with potatoes. Silken tofu that is just more translucent, more flavorless and somehow used to be a fish.

That stuff sells like crazy in Finland, yet probable less so than in Sweden.

I do enjoy it, but only a few glasses every now and then during christmastime. One can think of it a sort of Nordic (or German if you includ Glühwein) take on Barolo Chinato. A sweet, spiced wine.

You forgot the Aquavit!

From where? Glögg?

I believe Merrill means snaps is part of the Glögg recipe. It is!!
Glühwein is better imo

As a Dane i just want to state that i absolutely hate Gløgg! We add a lot of raisins in Denmark… such a bad combination.

People do seem to enjoy it though, and goes all crazy about it every Christmas.

Hard to argue with a fella named Claus

That might be a Danish thing. And using aquavit in glögg sounds something Norwegian.

Although there are some glöggs in Finnish/Swedish market that hover around 15-18% ABV (and there are some non-wine based glöggs out there as well, like brandy glögg), the traditional red wine glöggs are around 12-13% and have no spirits whatsoever in them.

Especially as aquavit is a very marginal thing in Finland and not big of a thing in Sweden, adding it to a glögg sounds really weird. Since most of aquavit consumption in Finland happens around midsummer, adding it to a classic Christmas beverage sounds like having Easter eggs on Halloween.

Some people add raisins or almonds to glögg here in Finland as well. That’s something I loathe, too.

1 bottle of Aquavit, 1 bottle red wine, cardamon seed, orange peel, cinnamon stick, almonds, raisins…I forget what else. Can you spell L-I-N-D-Q-U-I-S-T. Swedish. Glogg. Oh yes, and cloves. Got to pull out my recipe.